Damage
by SpreadTheWord
Summary: . ..Because in the end we are nothing more than broken people living broken lives, driving our broken cars home to our broken families, waiting for the day when we can break down.. . [Now complete!]
1. Coffee

**A/N: Okay, not my first House fic, but the first I've posted. This might be drabble, I'm not sure. I do know, but this is some of my best stuff, so if you flame me, I will know where you live (jk, flame away my children, flame away. I really don't care.) **

**X x X x X**

Cameron was a pretty girl. It sucked, the kind of stereotypes that follow you around when you're pretty, and Cameron wasn't_ just _pretty. She was smart, and you _can't _be a smart and pretty girl without being something else too: funny, dirty or dead.

_Or damaged, _she adds decidedly, staring into her cold coffee. _Pretty girls don't go to med school unless they're damaged. _

Who hurt her? Was it dad who thought marrying a dying man stupid, or mom who believed it heroic? Her sister who called her Barbie every chance she got? House for taunting, Foreman for believing, Chase for sex? Or was it the dying man himself, the one whose face she couldn't get out of her head, the one who would have died alone if she hadn't stepped in. He still died all the same. Were her tears worth the comfort she had provided then?

She wasn't funny. She tried and failed. She wasn't crude enough to carry a decent punch line and didn't have the heart for anything rogue. Dirty was out, it didn't work on her, and dead was a joke.

But damaged? That she could carry, that she could be. She let other hurt her. She stepped up to the plate and handed them the baseball bat. She set herself up to be beaten down. She expected it.

Why had she taken this stupid job? The pay was crap, the tasks degrading, and the objectives immoral. House was brilliant but cold, a combination Cameron had always had trouble coping with. He was never open. He was never warm, at least not to her. She was usually ignored and underestimated when she wasn't. She didn't stay because of him. She didn't stay for either of her co-workers either; Foreman whose words could burn and Chase who was a moron most of the time.

No, that wasn't true. Chase wasn't a moron. House wouldn't have hired him if he were. He was just young, only a few years of med school when he started working in the Clinic. What was it that had made House hire him? Somehow, the call-from-his-dad thing didn't seem particularly likely. The chances that Rowan Chase would go out of his way for his son's benefit were slim. It was far more likely House had noticed the trace of brilliance Chase occasionally allowed to shine through. Why he withheld it, why he built up walls between himself and everyone else was a mystery to all. Sometimes she doubted even Chase himself knew.

Then there was Foreman, defiant and daring with a 4.0 grade point average from one of the best medical schools in the world. He could match every step with House and still manage not to completely alienate everyone around him. Most of the time. He had stolen her article, taken advantage of her trust and friendship. Of course, she had forgiven him. Cameron forgave everyone, no matter what the cost was to herself. It killed her not to.

_It disappoints them,_ a whispered voice cooed through her mind. _People expect Saint Allison to forgive their sins and accept their empty repents._

"Am I a disappointment?"

Ideas muse through her mind for a moment before she decides.

_I am a disappointment._

Not to her family surely, for becoming a doctor made for some pretty large bragging rights. Sometimes they questioned if she was too anti-social without a cute boyfriend to bring home or too lonely without a cute boyfriend at all.

"_Unless you're getting some major action from all those adorable male nurses in those oh-so-functional supply closets, I suggest you spend a little more time in a mini-skirt and a little less time in a lab coat, Barbie-doll."_

Ah, the shrewd words of wisdom from a kid sister with kids of her own. The man _she _had married was still alive. The man _she _married had probably never had anything worse than the chicken pox. The man _she _married had given her children, three lovely healthy children who had_ her_ pretty eyes and _her_ doting smile. _She _had married a man who would never die lonely, one who would loved her. Why couldn't Cameron get past the fact that she hadn't married a man at all, just a terminal cancer and the shadow it ate alive? Why was she letting ghost under her skin years too late? Why couldn't she let go? She couldn't let go...

Slowly she places her coffee mug down on the table before her, afraid it will spill in her shaking hands. She says nothing, terrified someone will hear her fears, terrified her nightmares will be acknowledged into actuality. Yet somehow, somewhere, someone should be listening. God wasn't. God didn't exist.

_People create some kind of super-being to control their lives so they won't have to, _Cameron muses, carefully tracing the rim of her coffee cup, watching the dried residue smear with renaissance red lipstick, smudging them into nonexistence. _They think fate isn't in their hands, they think their actions aren't their fault. _

She lifts her hand as if suddenly burned.

_They're wrong._

Are they? Cameron had always hated her own lack of faith. She could believe in the human spirit, in medicine, in the good in people, but she couldn't bring herself to believe in God. Some people dedicated their whole lives to Him. Some people chose to devote their entire beings to something which they had no real proof of existence. Chase almost had. Why hadn't he?

_Probably dropped out the minute it came time for him to take that Vow of Abstinence. _

Cameron snorted, a cruel smile filling her lips, almost immediately followed by a burning guilt. That was unkind. For a moment, she searched for a reason to be angry with Chase, a reason to hate him, justification for her malice. She found none. She never did.

Unable to lift the crude taste of acrimony from her lips, she took a swig of cold, bitter coffee, letting her mouth be filled the familiar taste to wash out the foreign tang of hatred. And in an instant it was gone, washed away, leaving no hint that it had ever existed apart from the fresh scars that now tainted her day. Cameron wasn't one to let the scars fade. She was too pretty, too smart. She was too damaged.

**X x X x X**

**Comments would be lovely, and I'm sorry, non-Cameron fans, for staring out with her, but I promise to cover everybody. Everybody's got vices, right? Chase is next (cause daddy issues are fun!) and I promise to include Wilson, Foreman, and House, with a probably on Cuddy. Maybe even Stacy. Am I missing anyone? Comment for world peace or inner peace or whatever works for you.**


	2. Crossword

**A/N: Yay for positive feedback! This chapter is dedicated to Fluffy 2001 for being amazing and REVIEWING and to Loremaster of Anorien for favoriting. You guys rock!**

**Disclaimer: Disclaimers suck. So does plagiarism. Not mine, people.**

**X x X x X**

People thought they knew him. People thought they could read him and his shallow stance, his ass-kissing backstabbing manner and dismissed him. They stuck a label on his prize-winning ass and claimed they knew all about him.

They were wrong.

Chase had always taken refuge in hiding-places. He used his textbooks to hide from his parents' constant screaming, the reason for all those good grades all those bad years. Drugs worked for a while when running from the rules, at time when a false rebellion had held almost as much comfort as a real one. He had used the bible to hide from hard questions, where he had pretended to search for answers. Then, when all else failed, he hid within himself, only to find that there was no hiding.

_Dissapearing's not for ghosts, just the people turning into them._

Why was he always left alone? Dad was never home, too busy saving lives or screwing around. Mum was there but never there, trapped in some gin bottle far away. It took her five years to go from living dead to just plain dead.

Maybe he was always alone because he ran away. He ran to the other side of the world, as far from a former life as he could. Maybe he was the ghost.

_Not even ghosts can disappear for long._

Chase sighed, shifting in his chair uncomfortably, staring at his half-completed crossword with slight dislike. Half of him wanted to chuck it across the room, the other, more dominant half, knew if he did, it would drive him crazy for the rest of the day. So he sighed again and bit hard into his pen.

_Good boy. Do your crossword just like daddy. Bite your pen just like daddy. Cock your head, stand too straight, roll your eyes just like your dear old dad. It's the closest you'll ever get to him. It's the closest he'd ever let you._

Chase learned long ago that it didn't actually matter how much you care. It didn't matter how many times he told his mother he loved her, how her drinking was killing her, killing him. It didn't matter how many times he called his dad when he heard he was in town, how many times his call wasn't returned. It didn't matter how many times he worked his ass off to get the diagnosis right when he would always be a moron to House. It didn't matter. It was never enough.

So don't care. Don't let the poison in. Don't let them under your skin.

_Just walk away._

It didn't take long to figure out that in the end running away is nothing more than running in circles. Vices seemed to follow you that way.

Chase shifted again, this time completing the rare motion of scratching the back of his head, feeling out the dozen-year-old scar from that time his mother lost it and took a swing at him with a bottle of gin.

He was used. It usually wasn't intentional, just habit for most. He was the guy you didn't think you could hurt; the guy you never saw as anything more than the cardboard cutout not worth noting until you needed something. Consequences never were quite the priority.

_Two word, nineteen letter name for the rare condition in which Heidi Falconer suffered._

He seemed invincible; cocky and solf-absorbed. Nothing could break him. No one saw him break.

_It had something to do with water, like being allergic to it, Aquatic something._

He hadn't thrown a punch sinse he was fifteen. He hadn't cried sinse he was ninteen. He hadn't screamed for a whole ten minutes. People thought he was fine.

They were wrong.

_Aquagenic Urticaria, that's it._

Cameron was wrong. He was wrong. Sex didn't mean _nothing_. It couldn't. She never did quite look at him the same, less respect and more…something. He couldn't pin it. Whatever it was he hated it. He hated her.

It felt so wrong.

_That the trial of your faith (much more precious than gold, which is tried by the fire) may be found unto praise and glory and honor at the appearing of Jesus Christ._

What kind of joke was that? The trials of faith was life being lived. You can't get through life undamaged. Being around other people, talking to them, doing your job, not doing your job, your family, whatever; it damaged you. The only way not to come out completely broken would be to live in a John Travolta-style bubble. Hell, even that would break you. Lack of human contact. Like hell.

He had tried running. Running away. Running in circles. It was like listening to your favorite song on repeat. The same story, same words get all too worn out.

It used to be _Losing my Religion_, his favorite song. Now he can't listen to it without wanting to punch something. His religion was lost. Morals never existed.

And what was that? Morals, a code of ethics for him to live his life by. Do no harm, right?

Who was he anyways? First and foremost? A doctor, a son, a lamb abandoned by his Sheppard? Or was he a human being? Was it too much like House to wish he weren't?

Chase felt like screaming. He shoved his pen further in his mouth, trying to hide the gag. This is who he was. This is who he'd become. He didn't know this guy, this guy who'd stab your back with second thoughts much too late, this guy who valued flight over fight, this guy who hated just about everyone around him, himself included. This poor sap didn't even know who he was. In the end, he was nothing more than a suit.

People thought he was more, a jerk or a rat, an ass or a rich brat.

They were wrong.

He was nothing.

**X x X x X**

**Comments, please, I'm desperate for them!**


	3. Paperwork

**A/N: Feedback makes my world go round! This chapter goes out to smilebackwards, DeathtotheMarySue, Dr. Rebecca Chase, Ivy3, Rose12345 and yet again Fluffy2001 for some awesome reviews. Yet again, you guys rock!**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Nothing but Jesse Spencer's fine ass. Though that's only in my head. pouts **

**Foreman's turn...**

**X x X x X**

People were ignorant. They thought that just by looking at you they knew you, knew your story. They thought they knew how to play you, know you'd play them. People saw your skin and thought they knew how to get under it.

People are morons. He'd spent too much time with House not to believe that.

Foreman closed his eyes, rolled his neck and took a sickening pleasure in the cracking that came from it.

There was a time when he didn't think he was going to make it to his eighteenth birthday. He, honest to God, thought he was going to get shot down or knifed in the gut before he hit suffrage. Fear can make you weak, but if you can survive it, if you can get past it, it will make you strong. If you can't, you will fall apart.

_Don't fall apart. Don't fall..._

Eric's the good boy. Eric went to medical college. Hell, the fact that Eric went to college period was an achievement. Eric didn't end up in jail, addicted or dead. Eric was the good boy.

Foreman sighed, trying hard to ignore how his eyes were fogging over, how he really needed sleep, how this paperwork _could _wait until tomorrow, but he really didn't feel like staying late two nights in a row. Determination, discipline; its how he made it out of hell and into the world of medicine.

_The ghetto's just another name for black hell. Go ahead sinners, pretend it doesn't exist. It's where you'll end up, cold, alone. There's no upside. There's no getting out._

Yet he had gotten out, no real damage done. He was a doctor, and after all, doctor's just another name for messiah. They were the one's who had saved his best friend when he was shot (the first time. It didn't work so well the second.) Living like that, it had taught him to be strong. It had taught him to survive, to be unafraid. House was nothing after you had a knife shoved in your face by a crazy crack-dealer screaming how he was gonna mess you up.

And yet...

All he had been through had taught him to hate. He hated those who had made his hell, cops and authority figures, and all he'd had been, a delinquent and a threat. He had been taught where to hit and how to lie. He had been taught how to make other people afraid while he was scared out of his mind. He had been taught that no matter how much you tried to protect the people you love, your brother from your sins and your mother for the truth, all your attempts will, in the end, fail. Life made him learn.

_You never forget the lessons taught by your fellow sinner. You share your scars and take on theirs. You never forget. You never..._

Foreman sighed again, turning the page slowly, pen in hand.

He never forgot.

But she did.

It was hard to watch his mother fall apart, forget the good that had come more recently and slowly slip back into the days when he stole cars and sold fake drugs, when he got into trouble and fistfights like it was sport. She couldn't see the future back then. Now she couldn't see the past.

_If the ghetto's physical hell then Alzheimer's is the mental._

Foreman paused, considered biting his pen and then decided better of it. It didn't exactly belong to him, and being unaware of the previous owner made him wary. The last thing he needed was Chase's dried spit in his mouth.

Foreman smirked.

Chase was a moron. He was a good doctor, great even, and still, he was a moron. He knew medicine, probably grew up surrounded by renowned doctors, but he didn't care about people. At least House didn't claim otherwise. Chase was pretentious, obnoxious even, just a spoiled brat who hated his dad, and for what? Paying for med school? Not buying him a pony? So what if his parents split? Foreman grew up with kids who never knew their dads at all, some who didn't know either parent. He was lucky. He had both.

Then there was Cameron, who found it impossible to hate or hold a grudge, who never spoke badly of anyone and always forgave. It didn't matter what you did, how you hurt her. She'd never bite back. She'd never bite.

And yet...

She could. She could break a man with something as small as a look. But she was too good. For once noble didn't seem too strong a word. She knew how to survive.

Foreman smiled, snapped the file shut and moved on to the next yellow-tabbed folder.

Why was he still here anyway? He had long since earned enough of a reputation to earn a decent job someplace else, someplace where he had more significance than an intern, someplace where doing your job didn't involve breaking into people's homes. So why didn't he just leave?

Maybe it was because no job he could possibly take would ever be so interesting. Maybe it was because he liked the challenge. Hell, maybe he just liked to see House, on rare occasion, proved wrong.

Now House, House was interesting. Obviously brilliant, it was a still a mystery why he went into a branch of medicine that is almost entirely patient interaction. He hates people, yet bases his entire existence around them. It's like those people that hate dogs but can't help but take in stays.

Foreman smiled triumphantly, sliding the last page of treatment commentary into its respective folder. Paperwork was done. Take that Cuddy.

Foreman was used to being underestimated. Some hard-ass black kid with a gang-bangin' girl selling his mother's spice rack as crack on some corner wasn't the first kid you'd expect to make graduate first in class from Hopkins, never getting anything less than a perfect grade. People had assumed he was stupid, a junkie, another mindless youth. Now they assumed he had never seen that life.

Nobody believed getting out was an option.

Yet he had gotten out.

He had gotten out.

**X x X x X**

**Ugh, so unsure about this chapter. I had never really given that much thought to Foreman before now, so this was pretty fun to write. How'd I do?**

**Have a great Christmas/Kwanzaa/Hanukah/La Fiesta de la Posada/whatever atheist holiday it is that atheists celebrate. **


	4. Latkes

**A/N: Feedback's magic! It makes me love you, like I love Ivy3, Dr. Rebecca Chase and Rose12345 because they REVIEW!**

**Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue.**

**X x X x X**

Wilson was the perfect man. He was the nice guy, the good doctor and son, the fantastic cook who could charm you in an instant and could make you feel like a better person with just a few words, who got thanked for telling you you're going to die. He could make you grateful for everything and sorry for nothing. He was that guy who made more money than you, who drove a better car and owned a bigger house, and yet somehow next to him you felt rich, because his mere presence made whatever was wrecking your day seem insignificant.

And yet, as a human being, he sucked.

He was lonely.

Because out of all his great attributes, Wilson had no idea how to love, only to need. He could charm you, make you believe, make himself believe. It's how he ended up in three failed marriages. He could fall in love and have you falling too. And falling, falling felt good, until you hit the ground. And with James Wilson, you were guaranteed to hit the ground hard. Reality tasted like shit after the sugarcoating wore off.

_Reality is shit._

Wilson smiled sadly to himself as he watched his latkes fry in a bit too much oil. Damn. They were going to be greasy. It didn't matter the season; he made his world famous potato pancakes year-round, never too dry or heavy or oily. They were always perfect. Except this batch. This batch was greasy.

He really was a great cook. It was part of his lure; funny, sweet, a doctor _and _incredible in the kitchen. He was the guy all those fifties housewives spent years screaming for their daughters to marry. And he did marry. Just not for long.

Wilson was magic. His magic just had the bad habit of dying.

_Never see the downside. Never see. Never see..._

He'd always been an idealist, lost somewhere far too far from actuality not to see the cracks of his relationships until it was too late. As long as he believed in his fellow man, as long as he never lost faith, there would always be some faith to be had.

_Had he lost faith? _

He ran his finger through his slightly frazzled hair.

_He had lost faith._

He had never been a man who followed religion. Yes, he believed in God. He believed when there was nothing left to believe in, but as for praying, as for attending synagogue and acting as a brother to his fellow Jew, he was a failure. Hell, he couldn't even act as one to his own brother. How could he be expected to hold a nation on his shoulders? How?

He was a good man, but he was a broken man.

Wilson sighed, rolled his shoulders back and blinked a few times. If only he the world would stay in focus. He was going to burn his dinner.

_Oh well, they're greasy anyway, _he though hopelessly. _Why bother trying to save what's already lost?_

It's what he had said years earlier, in that final blowout with his brother. His mind seemed repetitive in its sleeplessness.

"_Why are you condemning me? You don't condemn your goddamn cancer kids. Why don't you save me? Why don't you save me you goddamn hypocrite?"_

Wilson winced at the memory. It wasn't his proudest moment, standing in the middle of a packed sidewalk, just standing there as the crowds filed past, his brother standing before him, clothes ragged, words slurred. He had once been older. He had once idolized that man. What turned him into a stranger he no longer recognized? What tore everything in his life apart?

When he was a kid, he had an uncle, a real sweet guy who never did anybody any wrong who died a slow, painful death; terminal brain cancer, a tumor that had metastasized everywhere. He had promised his parents he'd become an oncologist, a promise that had earned him a laugh and a pat on the back, a promise he never bothered to break. No, he just broke everything else. He needed the broken to survive, to fill his borderline addiction with fixing everyone and everything around him. Maybe that's why he hung out with House so much.

Wilson sighed for what felt like the millionth time, dropping his sizzling latkes onto an almost-clean plate.

House pushed and tweaked, nudging you closer to the edge with every passing day. Wilson wondered vaguely how hard he'd have to push before he fell past the point of no return. Why he let him was beyond most people's comprihension.

The truth was he was used to being shoved around. Not arguing was an added bonus on his marriages. Instead of screaming he just drifted away until one of them rediscovered actual human contact with someone they weren't married to. He wasn't afraid of the screaming. That's what his first two wives did when he told them about his affairs. He was, however, terrified of losing those around him. He didn't yell when he Julie told him about screwing her lawyer. By then he figured she was already lost, and the idea of another man seeing his wife that way, touching his _wife,_ made him sick to his stomach. He knew he was a hypocrite. He knew he had no right ot be angry, no right to hate. He didn't hate Julie, or even Julie's goddamn lawyer; just himself for letting it happen, for being distant, for not screaming.

James Wilson didn't loose it. He didn't love. He needed, he hated. He was falling, falling anyway he could.

Nobody ever tried to catch him. Nobody ever tried.

Why bother trying to save what's already lost?

**X x X x X**

**Hey, if I get enough reviews, I'll include a bonus chapter where everybody gets together and gets drunk. Doesn't that sound nice? Worth the three minutes it takes to review? **

**Cuddy's up next, then House unless I get any requests for characters to come before him., (I'd like to wrap it up with House, sinse he sees everything and I can tie everything together with him the best.) That is, unless people review and I do my pass-the-whiskey chapter, which I promise, will be fabulous. **

**REVIEW!**


	5. Tiffany's

**A/N: Welcome to the Reviewing Hall of Fame, now paying homage to the wonderful fluffy2001, Dr. Rebecca Chase, smilesbackwards, Rose12345, MusicalMemory, DeathtotheMarySue, Key Smith, Kalmeida, BeccyJose and Ivy 3, for being amazing and (that's right kids) REVIEWING! YAY.**

**Disclaimer: It's posted on FF. Do you really think it's mine? Don't sue.**

**X x X x X**

It used to be _Breakfast at Tiffany's. _It used to be her favorite movie. She used to love how Audrey Hepburn flipped her hair and smiled like the world was okay even though she knew better than anyone that it wasn't. She used to pray that someday she'd be able to do that, smile and make the darkness disappear. She never could.

Lisa Cuddy wasn't Audrey Hepburn. She wasn't skinny or flighty or a flirt. She was too damn smart to let herself be. No, instead she was a hard-assed supervisor who spent all day keeping House from killing his patient and everybody else from killing House, not to mention the nonstop ass kissing for all those high-and-mighty corporate sponsors. She kept the hospital, her baby, running smoothly and spoiled as hell. It was her job. It was her life.

_Because having a separate life away from work was just crazy._

She needed it to be one life. She didn't have enough time to divvy it up. Every second needed to be filled and filled productively. It's how she made it to the top, the first woman dean of medicine, the second youngest on record. She had once heard a young med student refer to her as 'the brilliant power-hungry, dragon-lady bitch that she wanted to be in ten years.' She might have been a bit insulted if she hadn't been so incredibly flattered.

Cuddy smiled inwardly, eyelashes sticky from mascara slightly past its expiration date. She tilted her head back slightly, allowing her tight muscles to relax as the sound of soft-falling rain soaked through her skin. Too bad, it was soaking through her roof too.

People disapproved of her, her uptight lifestyle and high power role. The medical world was truly a man's world, and you had to have balls if you were going to survive, more balls than your male coworkers if you were going to succeed. Everything came at a price. You had to be willing to pay with your life to win all that she had won; you had to be willing to live with no regrets.

Yet she did have regrets.

She regretted not getting married or having kids or becoming Audrey Hepburn. She loved her life, her friends, her job, and still she regretted all that her life was missing.

She was sick of paying with her life. She wanted life. She wanted not to scare the shit out of people as most women in power do. She wanted to have a piece of her (an inevitably, the man of her choice) to run around, to call her mom, to need her, to love her. She wanted someone to rely on her for reasons other than covering their asses and filing complaints. A part of her just wanted to be a real doctor again, instead of the wretch that made sure they didn't screw up.

There was one clear leak in the middle of her kitchen, sweet-smelling rainwater pooling beside her refrigerator. Its sound was therapeutic, soothing after a long day. She considered moving from her recently reupholstered La-Z-Boy in the next room over to go get a bucket, but didn't mind it enough to move. It was nice. Or maybe just sitting was, and the dripping wasn't annoying enough to keep it from being nice. Whatever. For the moment, the dragon lady was cool.

Cool.

She wasn't cool with everyone, her fifties housewife mother and three Barbie sisters. They were like clones. They each popped out another baby every chance they got, each one more Jewish than the next. Two were orthodox. Between the three of them, they had nineteen kids. _Nineteen. _It was like a testament to the Brady Bunch (only with more realistic hair.) She was the only one without a man, without a baby and without a prayer. She had something they didn't.

She had a career.

And she had balls of steel.

Lucky, lucky her.

Sometimes she wondered, wondered what her life would be like without all the sacrifices, without all the bullshit. She wondered what it would with like with a man in her bed, in her house, in her life. She was getting so sick of being alone, of being lonely.

_How long?_

How long could she last? She wanted, oh God, how she wanted! She wanted her mother's disappointment to disappear. She wanted to live! She wanted to be Audrey Hepburn! She wanted calories! Could she ever be anything other than safe?

_What's so wrong with safe?_

Safe was what kept the hospital running. Safe is what kept the lawyers at bay. Safe is what kept her from going out, getting plastered and picking up the man of her dreams (for one night at least.)

Cuddy sighed, running her long, elegant fingers through her now tangling hair. She couldn't remember what shade of brown it was this month. She would have to consult the box of overly pink hair dye sitting on her bathroom counter. Or maybe she would just ask House. He would know.

She felt so old, like her chances were gone and her year numbered. She had no real family, just her baby, the hospital. What would happen when she got too tired to run it? She would retire, no doubt, but then what? She would be alone, truly alone with nothing and no one to care for or about her. What would she do then? Write a book? Sit back and enjoy her loneliness? Live vicariously through the holiday photos of growing families her sisters occasionally bothered to send? That's what she did now. My God, she felt like a failure.

Cuddy sat bolt upright, her relaxation suddenly gone.

She would settle for a fling. My God, she would take anything, anyone. She needed sex! She needed her straight-laces undone, if just for one night.

Cuddy stood swiftly, wincing at the pain of putting weight on her sore feet. Damn shoes. They were two inches too high, but too stylish not to wear. She had always been good at dealing with pain.

_It's the mistake you always made, Doc, trying to love a wild thing._

Was she wild, something worth taming?

Sometimes she wondered.

Oh God, how she wondered.

_You mustn't give your heart to a wild thing._

Maybe _Breakfast at Tiffany's_ was wrong. Maybe you should.

Did anyone dare?

**X x X x X**

**Drum role for the chapter everyone's been waiting for! House is up next! It probably won't be up until Friday, maybe Saturday. Sorry. I'm going to be pretty busy. I'll do my best to get it up soon. And since I already hit my 20-review goal (score!) there will definitely be the drunken bonus chapter. –crowds clap wildly-**

**Review anyway? **


	6. Keys

**A/N: Here ya go kids! The chapter you've all been waiting for, but not before I thank the ever-fabulous Rose12345, Gabunny, Fluffy2001 and emotikka for reviewing! YAY!**

**And remember kiddies, stick around after the show for the everybody-gets-plastered bonus chapter! (Now isn't that the dictionary definition of fun?)**

**Oh yeah, just a note; the ACA is the Adult Children of Alcoholics Worldwide Organization. Just a pop-culture reference y'all should probably know. (Okay, done stalling now.)**

**Disclaimer: Not Mine. Don't sue.**

**X x X x X**

Everybody lies.

It's a fairly straightforward message. Don't trust. Don't believe. Don't be a moron. Everything you say can and will be used against you, so don't bother with the mendacity, the niceties, all the usual social crap. Anyone who can't see through that deserves to be manipulated.

Gregory House had always seen. He didn't take life glossed over, to see people pitied. He liked the facts, cold and hard, to know, to understand, to cure. The human race was nothing more than a puzzle.

Maybe that was a lie.

Was life something more? Was a sonnet more than words? Was a song more than notes? Or was emotion nothing but the brain's all-too-gullible reaction to everything it saw and heard? Did refusing to feel make him less human or just cold?

House tilted his head to the left then to the right, trying to see every aspect of the world around him; the slight dust collecting on his grand piano, the rough stapling of the medical journal sitting on his dirty coffee table, the ring of dried coffee left beside the coaster. Maybe if he could see everything, see through everyone, he could feel just a little less than God indented, if such a being existed.

God.

He had never believed. There was no proof, no reason to waste your time and, inevitably, your life dedicated to something there was no evidence of. Was God an emotion too, some other sentiment he just couldn't feel?

God forbid.

Why did people believe? Did they value their ignorance so much? Is that how they made it through like? Was blind the only way to wander? Maybe life was too ugly to travel seeing. House had always refused the blindfold. What make him ugly also made him sharp, made him see. Was it worth it?

House bit his lips, taking note they were starting to chap. He wouldn't do anything about it, just make note of it.

Carefully he laid his long, nimble finger across the smooth, cool, un-daunting keys of his piano, letting the notes ring out, surround him, fill him. There so much emptiness to fill.

It wasn't like his life was lack of people. He had Cuddy, Wilson, his minions. Ducklings. When he walked they walked. When he stopped they stopped. Usually.

There was Cameron, the broken doll. Beautiful and misused, misunderstood and neglected, she was a flower left alone to bask in her own beauty and self-loathing. She got involved where she shouldn't and expects others to give a shit too. She didn't want to be alone. She wanted to love and be loved. She was only setting herself up for disappointment.

Chase was the kid lost in the super-market, desperate for attention and scared out his mind, directly showcasing nine of the thirteen common traits the ACA spent all their time pushing out on those cheesy Public Service Announcements. He was just a poor screwed up teenager, pissed at his dad and kissing his teacher's asses rather than studying for tests.

Finally there was Foreman, the Muhammad Ali of medicine, who was probably the only one who stood a chance of taking House in an intellectual fight. He was smart, one of the sharpest doctors he had ever met, and willing to work his ass off for whatever he needed. He knew hell. He also knew what it took to get out of it.

Most of his former employees, namely the ones that hadn't stuck, had left with the fear that they would spend the rest of their professional lives in his shadow. Foreman expected to surpass it. Cameron didn't mind. Chase preferred it to his father's. They weren't particularly noble reasons for surviving him, but House had never cared much for nobility. All he cared was that it worked.

House faltered, his fingers slipping, missing a key. Damn. He froze, for a moment unsure of how to continue. Picking a new piece seemed over-rational. Starting over was a bit too OCD for his liking. Slowly his fingers started up again, continuing through the ruined piece.

He had been all over the world, seen all types of people and the places they thrived. He had seen discrimination and hate and pity and love and promise and starvation among lands some considered to flow with milk and honey. He had been told lies of truth and truth in lies and in the end the most important lesson taught to him was to learn, to listen, to see.

He knew of religion and unity and morals. He just chose to ignore them.

He used to wonder about the human race, about his fellow man.

He chose to ignore them too.

The end of the song was nearing, his fingers twisting, entwining, lacing across the black and white bars, his pace rabid. The beat was matching that of his heart, intertwining with his very being.

The worst moment of his life was waking up in a starch white hospital room, with an indescribable, near-blinding pain pulsing throughout his body, the source his leg, and, even worse than the pain, the horrible sinking feeling in his stomach, the plummet of all emotions but misery, as he realized that all he had dreaded, the misuse of his leg, the title of cripple; it had all come back to him. It was him. He was a cripple. He. Was. A. Cripple.

And worst of all was Stacy, standing guiltily beside his bed, terrified of what he'd say.

And he had done the worst.

He told her to get out.

It wasn't that he didn't want to see her. He just couldn't stand to look at her. She had done this to him, saved his life. If only he didn't rather be dead over this.

He was a cripple.

He was a pill-popper.

He was an ass.

He saw.

He saw everything he did and did not want to, saw joy and celebration, tragedy and resilience. He saw birth and death and everything in between.

He saw life.

If he couldn't, wouldn't live it, at least he was a witness.

He was a whisper of a man.

In the end, he was nothing more than a forgotten whisper.

Dare he forget?

**X x X x X**

**Well, that chapter almost killed me. I started this over about half a dozen times before I was satisfied with his portrayal (still not completely, but close.) It's pretty hard to get inside the head of someone whose entire existence is devoted to getting into other people's heads. **

**Yow. **

**I really hope everybody liked this, even though it's a bit rougher than the others and I didn't rap it up the way I originally planned. I'll try and pull it all together better in the bonus chapter.**

**Who's ready to get smashed?**

**Yup. Me too. **

**Review?**


	7. Liquor

**A/N: Well, this just about wraps it up. Who's proud of me for actually finishing this? Yes my friends, my skills are truly amazing. Even though it took me longer to write this than it took me to write, all the other chapters combined. Rawr.**

**This is the bonus chapter, so if it doesn't necessarily fit the normal format for the rest of this fic. It's just some fluff, though for me fluff is pretty heavy. Just a few warnings; **

**They talk about their sex lives.**

**The get plastered.**

**I'm crap with dialogue.**

**I just really want there to be four warnings.**

**Hokay, enough of that. Special thanks out to Fluffy2001, Ivy3, Dr. Rebecca Chase, graybaby1 and Rose1234 for being amazing. I don't have any more chapters to thank people for reviewing in, so you'll have to go thankless.**

**Sorry kids, no more pony-rides.**

**So now, without further ado, the House crew getting wasted.**

**X x X x X**

Three knocks on the clear glass door to declare his presence and state the obvious.

Two taps with his cane to make his impatience known.

One smirk just for jazz.

Doctor Gregory House had arrived.

"Password?" Chase asked conceitedly, opening the door a crack, his smugness slightly overshadowed by the four inches of slightly intimidating height his employer held over him.

House rolled his eyes, lifting the bottle of Stolli's. "Foreman broke in. Wilson brought poker cards. You did shit. Move."

Chase smiled his usual you-got-me-there-but-I-still-got-such-a-nice-arse-that-I-don't-need-any-social-skills smile and stepped aside.

"Why did Foreman have to break in?" Wilson asked vaguely, shuffling his beat up red cards. "This is your office. You could have just told the janitors not to lock it."

"Psh, boring," House deadpanned before biting into the cap of the vodka and ripping it off. "What is the password, by the way?"

"Infarction," Foreman supplied haughtily from House way-too-comfortable armchair. (Quality grade D pleather, no?)

"Creative," House nodded, taking a shot of the vodka before offering it around. "Who wants backwash?"

"I brought whiskey," Wilson muttered vaguely, nodding towards the two bottles on the front left-hand corner of his colleague's desk.

"So did I," a sweet, slightly smug voice called from the doorway. Cameron. Damn. Was there anyone _not _smug today? Other than Wilson. (He really needed a new wife.)

House shot her a slightly dirty look before taking a shot of slightly dirty liquor. God damn.

"No girl's allowed," he explained in strained sarcasm. "Sorry, it's a sexist thing."

Cameron rolled her eyes. "Infarction, right?"

House glanced around the room. "How come she got the password to a boys-only liquor- porn-and-poker-on-the-payroll-but-not-on-duty all-nighter but not me?"

Foreman's unbelievable smirk grew. "Because Chase-"

"-wants to get in her pants again?"

"I was going to say 'can't keep his mouth shut' but that works too."

"Gee Foreman, thanks," Chase muttered in monotone, leaning against the doorway. "Pass the Jack Daniels."

**About ten minutes of poker and four hours of drinking later...**

"Cameron, ask a question that isn't stupid."

"Best date isn't a stupid question!"

"It's boring and boring sucks. Besides you already asked it twice."

They drank the vodka. They drank the whiskey. Most of it anyway. Two and a half bottles. Maybe. It was kind of hard to focus. And count. Whatever. Wasted didn't even being to describe.

"Fine," Cameron slurred slightly, swaying under slight intoxication. "Best lay?"

They hadn't been able to find glasses (and nobody really felt like risking Cuddy seeing them sneaking around) so they'd just been passing the bottles around and hoping everyone else was keeping their spit in their mouths. (Violators would be shot. Unless that violator just so happens to be House. Then shooting him would be repetitive. They'd just beat him with his cane or something.)

Chase, the poor unfortunate (and, drum role please, most drunk) soul, had chosen that moment to take a shot of spiked-with-something-not-quite-legal liquor, so instead of swallowing, he just sort of choked across the carpet.

"I think Steve wants to go first."

"Steve?" Chase gagged, wishing he had faked sick and not shown up at all.

"Irwin. Who was you're your best bang?"

Chase swallowed hard, and after a few moments of hard consideration, (mostly about how the hell he was at all comparable to the Croc Hunter) shrugged and gave a _very_ articulate, "I dunno."

Shakespeare move on over.

House nodded solemnly from his place on the floor. "That means Cameron."

Cameron blinked a few times, trying to remember why exactly she had come here in the first place. Stupid sexist drunk-a-thon. "I'm too wasted to object."

"That means Chase was her best too. You guys should screw again. Eliminate the sexual tension, ya know?"

Foreman shook his head, and then stopped, due to the fact that the room had the nasty habit of spinning every time he moved. What the hell did House do to that stuff?

"You really shouldn't say that kind of stuff to your employees."

"Is that your way of evading the question?"

"No evading. My wife."

"Which one?"

"The first one."

"Bull."

"Second then."

"Second was your mistress during the first one. Nice choice."

"Shut up House."

"But what about Julie? What about number three?"

"What about shutting up?"

"Then again your best sex didn't have to be with someone you married. Jimmy have you been keeping secrets?"

"I give up."

"Finally. Chase, stop hogging the liquor."

Chase blinked a few times. He was falling asleep. Damnit.

"Wombat, wake up!"

Nothing.

"Wake up or I'll mess up your hair!"

Silence.

"Wait, that's probably impossible. Anybody got any scissors?"

Nothing again.

"Who wants a lock of that shiny yellow hair?"

Cue the wake-up call and...

"Did he die?"

Nothing.

"Whatever. Leave him. I'll crack some town drunk jokes later. Somebody pull that bottle from him."

Cameron took her shoe off and threw it at House. Being drunk sucked when your job already made you feel like you had a hangover. Or maybe it didn't. Maybe she liked her job. She couldn't remember anymore.

House smiled weakly at the shoe sitting across from him. Was it purple or black? It looks black but kind of shined pinkish-blue. Pinkish-blue was purple, right? How come only one of them was shiny?

"Who wants to talk about their worst lay? Foreman, you start off. Ghetto peeps bang all the time, right?"

"Wouldn't you want to finish off the best category before you move on to the worst?"

"Boring. Did it involve an STD?"

"Not exactly."

"How can sex not exactly involve an STD? It either does or it doesn't."

"One word; crabs."

"Shit."

"Ya, shit."

"What the hell are you doing?"

Ladies and Gentlemen, the dragon lady of PPTH.

"Hi Cuddy. Want some vodka?"

"That bottle's empty."

"Ya, but the limey fell asleep on the Jack Daniel's."

"Limey's British," Fore muttered, attempting to focus on House. "Chase is Australian."

House shrugged nonchalantly. "So?"

"So, you can't rag on him for being Australian and British all in the same night. It just doesn't work."

"Pommy then."

"Still British."

"It's a British immigrant to Australia. It's a jab for not being American. Why do you care?"

Cameron opened her mouth to complain about discrimination but shut it again. Stupid alcohol-educed about-to-throw-up-but-not-enough-to-actually-spew sensation. Dang. She was never drinking again.

Cuddy merely rolled her eyes. "What the hell did you to them?"

"Spiked the moonshine."

"With what?"

"I have no fucking idea. How did you know we were drinking?"

"You have glass walls!" Cuddy let out a rather animal and unlady-like cry of frustration. (Audrey Hepburn never freaked out like this. Then again, Lisa Cuddy had never been Audrey Hepburn. Never had. Never...)

She sighed, one thin, elegant hand on her hip. Perfect hands, perfect for playing piano and wearing cotillion gloves. So did House. Playing piano? That he could manage. Being a debutant?

Cuddy needed a drink.

Slowly she walked over to Chase (who even snored pretty!) and pulled the bottle from his fingertips. She lifted it to her mouth, smelling Foreman's danger, feeling Chase's doubt, tasting Cameron's lipstick. Ah, mother's milk.

House tilted his head to the side, happily taking in a mental image he would keep for years. Cuddy and whiskey. Whiskey and Cuddy. It was like peanut butter and jelly. They just went together. But where was the discipline, the bread, that kept everything together?

Placing the empty bottle on the floor, Cuddy strode to the door with a rather enviable grace. "You," she said calmly, indicating around the room, "are all working double clinic hours for a month." She glanced back, their tastes still on her tongue (Wilson's need, House's wit) and sighed. "Somebody make sure Chase is still breathing before you leave." (He had stopped snoring.)

Wilson blinked a few times. "She's good at her job," he observed in a slightly slurred voice.

Foreman nodded again. "And at holding her liquor." (She had drained half a bottle!)

Cameron stared at her bare foot. "And at walking in high heels."

"And at being a bitch," House concluded lightly. "I think they're all some how connected. Now who wants to strip Chase and lock him on the roof?"

Cameron rolled her eyes.

"I should object morally to that." A pause. "Can I do the pants?"

**X x X x X**

**Weak ending? Probably. But you gotta admit, plastered House and friends is pretty sweet.**

**Since this is it (sad!) comments would be greatly apprihesiated.**

**And thank you so, _so_ much for reading.**


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